


something out of a dream

by piratesails



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Co-Stars AU, F/M, birthday fic, movie stars au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 13:46:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5208119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratesails/pseuds/piratesails
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bottom line is, it’s only the fourth day of shooting and she’s already being driven fucking insane. Especially since everyone seems to be on his side. If this were Twilight, she thinks begrudgingly, she’d be the #TeamJacob that five out of five thousand people rooted for. Movie Stars AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	something out of a dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aelover867](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelover867/gifts).



> a birthday gift for the sweetheart, [Leah](http://archiveofourown.org/users/aelover867/works) who wanted a movie co-stars au.  
> title from ezra vine's 'celeste.'

**_and I like it,  
_**_**though I fight it.**  
_  

_Heartthrob Killian Jones cast alongside TV’s renowned Emma Swan for Booth’s latest fantasy/adventure flick._

The headline is two weeks old and she still throws up in her mouth a little whenever it pops up on the sidebar of EW Online. You’d think they would have moved on to another story by now but the Swan-Jones coupling has been all the rage ever since August finally announced the casting to the press. 

Killian Jones may have fans all around the globe but Emma is not one of them. It’s bad enough that her trailer is right next to his, making her subject to his early morning singing and late night booming laughter with a few of the cast and crew as they all share drinks.

She only knows what he’s doing because he invites her every evening. She always says no because she’d sooner get run over by one of the golf carts on set than spend a night drinking and making conversation with him.

She’s made a rule never to date co-stars and it doesn’t matter that he’s a good actor; he’s got a reputation as a charmer and he’s obnoxious as hell and it pisses her off. She knows men like him, and what she needs to do is stay as far away as possible.

(Ruby points out to her constantly that Vancouver is cold enough without her constant icy glares in his direction but she couldn’t care less.)

Bottom line is, it’s only the fourth day of shooting and she’s already being driven fucking insane. Especially since everyone seems to be on his side. If this were Twilight, she thinks begrudgingly, she’d be the #TeamJacob that five out of five thousand people rooted for.

Emma remembers the first table read, the first time she’d officially met him - even seen him outside one of his movies. She’d worked with a few people from the crew before and her and August had been friends ever since they met at her first promotional party; as far as she knew, Killian’s friend circle wasn’t that large considering this was his first big budget film. Still, by the time she’d reached the reading, he’d already had everyone wrapped around his charms. It didn’t work on her, though. The conversation he had attempted with her fell flat after her refusal to entertain his flirtations.

(He’d opened with “Might I say, the screen does your beauty no justice.”)

Killian Jones, she’d decided then, was simply trouble.

She reminds herself every morning before stepping out of her trailer that she’s doing this for her career. This is her biggest break yet, her jump from television to an actual full length movie, and sure she’s been doing pretty well, but she’s always strived for more and she isn’t going to stop now. She focuses on work and cares little for anything else; Emma Swan isn’t going to let some arrogant British jerk ruin this for her.

-/-

The thing about shooting an adventure film on location is that it’s physically exhausting. She can train and eat well and have a stunt double do all the harder stunts but by the end of the day, her body is always groaning with each step she takes. It’s 1 in the morning by the time August calls it a wrap and all she wants to do is bury herself in her duvet and never get up.

“Tired, Swan?” He’s standing with his hands in his pockets, that infuriating grin plastered across his face.

“No,” she doesn’t meet his eyes, focuses on zipping up her windbreaker because, fuck, it’s cold.

“Then you’d be up for a trip to the bar, wouldn’t you?” He saunters closer and how he has the first three buttons of his shirt open without catching pneumonia escapes her.

“No.” She shoves her hands in the jacket’s pockets. She should be nicer, probably. She does have to work with him for the next year and a half on this project. But -

“Come now, love, are you afraid you’re going to find me even more irresistible after a few libations in you?”

But she  _despises_  him.

He’s still smiling when she looks up at him, a mischievous thing, and it takes all the energy she has left to restrain herself from socking him in the jaw. Those self defense classes she took as a teenager have her knowing exactly which spot to hit to knock him out. And then maybe - finally - she’ll have some peace and quiet. (And that last bear claw he always seems to swipe off the refreshment table.)

“Don’t call me love.”

“Look, Swan,” he runs a hand through his hair, the cocky smile falling through, “it’s a celebratory pint since we’ve made it through two weeks of shooting. I’d like it if you joined us. And I’d like it even more if, perhaps, we could get along?” The way he ends the sentence makes it sound like a question, a suggestion.

His bravado disappears and she’d narrow her eyes at him in suspicion if she had any faith that she’d be able to open them up all the way again.

“It’s late and we’ve got to be up early,” she supplies a bit brashly, but he seems to understand that she’s digging for excuses to not spend any time with him because he simply nods and steps aside.

“Have a good night then,” he half smiles at her and she thinks he almost seems disappointed. But she shakes that thought away.

She’s barely five steps away from him when he calls to her, “Dream of me, darling!”

She wonders if there’s someone she can contact about putting a ban on endearments spilling from Killian Jones’s mouth.

-/-

She agrees to run lines with him only because she’s too jacked up on caffeine and sleep deprivation to come up with a plausible excuse not to. Plus, August is basically forcing her.

That’s how she finds herself in Killian’s trailer, hovering over his coffee maker, wondering if it would be a mistake to gulp down another cup or two. Maybe the bitter taste of coffee will drown out the bitter taste in her mouth that lingers every time she’s forced to spend more time than necessary with Killian.

“If you stare any harder at my coffee maker, you’re going to burn a hole through it,” he chuckles from where he’s sitting on the sofa behind her.

“Sorry, just wondering how much coffee is too much.” She’s become a bit more civilised towards him in the last few weeks, only for the sake of Ruby reminding her that they’ll need to do press releases soon and it would be very bad publicity if she was glaring at him throughout the interviews.

But that doesn’t ease the tension in her shoulders, or make her change her opinion about him. There’s just something about him that throws her off and it makes her not want to trust him.

“I saw you inhale three cups in under half an hour, some might call that an addiction,” he cocks his eyebrow at her when she turns to face him. He raises his hands in mock surrender, “I don’t mean to judge, I merely wish to  _espresso_  my concern for you.”

God, that was so bad, the only reaction she has is to break out into a scoff as she shakes her head at him, the tension easing off a little.

“That was  _awful_ , thank God you don’t write your own lines.”

“I’m quite the poet, I’ll have you know.” He shifts on the sofa, “Are you alright, though, Swan?”

There’s a sincerity there that she doesn’t,  _can’t_ , associate with him - one that makes her believe that he actually cares. She doesn’t let herself dwell on that thought so she simply nods and gestures at the script, “Do you wanna start?”

He eyes her for a while, and the tension threatens to crawl back until he breaks eye contact with a small hum. He shuffles through the script to find where they’re picking up from for the next day and pats the cushion next to him. She complies, leaving a reasonable amount of distance between them. "Right, so, this is an important one.”

In the scene, her character, Leia, has to make the decision of letting Charles join her on her mission to save her son. The basis of the movie is the belief in happy endings and Emma scoffs every time there’s a side note or a line about it in the script. Only fairytales have happy endings, real life doesn’t work that way; she would know better than anybody.  

Killian clears his throat, breaking her out of her reverie, and begins, “I don’t mean to upset you, milady, but I think we make quite the team.” Sometimes she wonders if Merlin, the head screenwriter, wrote Charles with strictly Killian in mind. The character fits him perfectly sometimes. Except Charles is far more likeable.

“That was just luck,” she says glancing at the script in his hands. “I should get going if I want to make it out of the forest by sundown.”

“Let me come with you.”

“I don’t need your help, I’ll be fine on my own.” Sometimes she wonders if Leia was written around her, too.

“You’ve spent your whole life like this, haven’t you?” She looks up at him and there’s a strange kind of understanding in his eyes.  _It’s just good acting_ , she repeats in her head over and over. “I know this land far better than you do, I would be a great asset here. Try something new, Leia, it’s called trust.”

His eyes dart between hers and she swallows, and it’s not like these words are actually for her, they’re for Leia. For closed off, walls high, would do anything for her son, Leia. Not Emma Swan. (Even if she checks off two out of three of those things, too.)

Her voice unknowingly drops down to a whisper as she says her next line, eyes still boring into his, “I- I can’t. I can’t take the chance that I’m wrong about you.” And the vulnerability that seeps through, the one she’ll kick herself for later, is too real to be  _just good acting_. She’s never been all too great with expressing her feelings and to hear herself say something like this out loud, something she’s never known how to bring out from deep inside her, it…well, it’s fucking terrifying.

Killian moves in closer, lifts his hand as if to reach for hers but then moves it back. She tries to recall if that direction is in the script. “Have I done you wrong, yet?” The expression he gives her is a painful mixture of angry and sad and maybe she should ask him for some pointers some time. When he isn’t staring at her with this crazy amount of intensity, of course. “Put a little faith in me, I don’t intend to leave you at the first sign of danger.”

And suddenly, it all becomes too much. Because her mind whirs with the thoughts of everyone who’s done just that, and then people who didn’t even wait for the danger to leave and she’s caught with the next line in her throat. (Because their chemistry is easy to handle when there are a thousand other people buzzing around them, but she’s never had to deal with  _this_  before.) So, she stands abruptly, ignoring the way he says her name in question.

She mumbles something about having to go, she thinks she tells him she’s too tired and that they’ll finish up later but she can’t be sure. She hightails it back to her trailer with her gaze forward and her chin up.

It’s only when she’s slumped down on the corner of her bed that she lets it all wash over her in a wave of sadness, and gives herself a few minutes to wallow in self pity. It’s been  _years_  since she’s let any of her feelings of abandonment resurface and she feels like an idiot for letting herself be so open around Killian. The little lost girl in her claws her way out and sits on her chest like a heavyweight.

When she lays down to sleep, she sees a strike of blue behind her eyelids and she has to remember that it wasn’t for her because people don’t look at her like that, people don’t attempt to pry her open like Charles does with Leia. People don’t  _care_. She has Ruby and Elsa, but it’s nothing romantic, nothing that monumental. Before sleep claims her, she hears the echo of worry in Killian’s, “Emma?” when she’d left his trailer. And her mind, for a sliver of a second, believes she could be wrong.

-/-

“I apologise if I said something wrong the other day,” Killian’s comes to stand in front of her after another scene wraps up. She’s been too in her head for the last few days, and it’s been taking them more takes than it usually does to get a scene right and she swears she could punch one of these trees if it meant getting  _some_  kind of feeling out.

“It wasn’t your fault, I was just having a rough day.” She has no fight in her right now to deal with his flirting remarks but one look at him makes her think that maybe he doesn’t have it in him, either.

He pulls out his hand from behind his back, a coffee cup in his grasp that he offers to her. “I meant to get this as a peace offering, but I suppose it could work as a mood booster of sorts.”

She furrows her brows, but reaches for the cup anyway. She doesn’t want to think about how he knows she likes cinnamon on her hot cocoa (he might’ve asked Ruby, her manager is always quick to drag men into her life, after all). She uses the long sip she takes of the drink to get her thoughts straight and  _God,_ he got the good cocoa from the place at the center of the town. He must have sent one of the gofers to get it but something tells her he drove out himself.

“Thanks,” is all she manages to come up with.  _Good job, Emma._

It’s strange to see him like this, his hand coming up to scratch behind his ear like he’s nervous, shifting a little on the balls of his feet. “My pleasure.” And then there’s that smirk like he’s just made the best innuendo known to mankind.

She rolls her eyes but it’s with less fire than that day of the table reading.

-/-

Ruby has her post a few ‘behind the scenes’ photos on her Instagram to keep her fans in the loop and to maintain the hype about the movie. Her main idea was posting set locations and script flatlays next to her coffee mug with the hashtag, LifeWithLeia.

That is, until Killian bumps her shoulder with his and says, “Why don’t you post a selfie of us for change? It’ll surely make your fans happy.”

She would argue but, he does have a point if she thinks about it logically. It makes sense if the love interests - in costume - were to pose for the fans. Plus, having Killian Jones on her social media would attract enough attention for Ruby to have a field day. She might need approval from August, just in case, but she thinks it won’t hurt too much since he’s been posting spoilers and tidbits on his own Facebook page.

So she shrugs and opens up her camera app.

He drapes an arm over her shoulders and squeezes closer to her so they both can fit in the frame. She snaps two nearly identical pictures, but he insists she use the second one because he looks better in it.

“You look the same in both of them,” she tries to reason.

“No, Swan, I don’t.”

“You’re such a drama queen.”

“ _Diva_ is the appropriate showbiz term, darling,” he winks at her before he stalks away to get himself more coffee, no doubt.

She posts the second picture after August agrees to it, looking over it for a few minutes, taking in the little crinkles next to Killian’s eyes and the way she seems to be leaning into him. She captions it  _#LifeWithLeia #andCharles._  Her notifications blow up in an instant, comments upon comments about  _how adorable_  and  _I ship it_  and  _they look perfect for each other_ and  _so great I can’t even_.

She clicks her phone off and tries not to wonder too much about it.

-/-

“Emma’s been spending a lot of time with Killian Jones lately,” Ruby blurts out over her margarita glass, avoiding Emma’s glare, when Elsa asks them if anything’s new.

She and Ruby flew back to New York for the weekend they had off, crashing at Elsa’s apartment for some much needed girl time. And sleep. That’s something Emma craves desperately. But by the look of interest on Elsa’s face, she thinks she might be forced to stay up and talk about her feelings.

“Emma, is this true?”

Emma rolls her eyes, “We agreed to be civil for the sake of the movie.”

“For the sake of the movie, my ass,” Ruby rebuts, “he brings you coffee every morning and not the shitty kind we get at the table, the good kind from town. Elsa, he got her flowers the other day. Like, an actual basket overflowing with flowers.”

“It wasn’t just for me, it was for the whole cast,” Emma defends.

“It might have been for everyone but he was only looking at you when he put it down. Whenever he sees you, he looks like the heart eyes emoji.”

Emma goes back to glaring at Ruby and Ruby glares right back.

“Girls,” Elsa interrupts, “behave.” Ruby harrumphs and goes back to her drink while Emma just burrows further into the couch. “Now, Emma, Killian Jones?”

“He’s not as big of an insufferable ass as he was before,” she mutters.

“Or is it just that he’s always been like this but you’ve decided to give him a chance now?” Elsa’s always been the voice of reason, the one who understands Emma’s choice of running over risking. When she says it, Emma’s taken back to the day in his trailer - the place she hasn’t stepped foot in since that day despite their steady sort-of-friendship - and it makes her think (and maybe panic a little). “Because it’s okay if you have, it’s not such a bad thing to let in people from time to time.”

“I haven’t- it’s not- he’s-,” she cuts off her own useless rambling when she decides she has nothing to say to that.

“I’m not asking you to do anything, Emma. Just think about it. If he makes you happy, he’s worth it, isn’t he?”

Elsa changes the topic after that and, to her relief, Ruby goes along with it. But she thinks about it for far longer than she probably should.

Has she let him in? Has she let him in _too much_? Should she put a stop to it? What exactly is he worth? Does she look like the heart eyes emoji when she looks at him? She doesn’t even know what that looks like personified, anyway.

He does make her happy, but in a friend way. Not in a romantic way.

Or maybe she’s been out of the game so long that she doesn’t even know what that feels like anymore. Neal was, God, what, ten years ago? She’s had the occasional one night stand in the last ten years (she has needs, too) but she doesn’t actually remember what that feeling of a long-lasting-serious-kind-of-relationship feels like.

She was better off without all this bullshit in her life, wasn’t she? She’s always been better off alone, it doesn’t have to change.

(She watches a few of his interviews that night after Ruby and Elsa fall asleep, and she catches herself missing him and his lilting accent and the way his mouth quirks up a little when something amuses him. And she’s always hated change, but- but maybe.)

-/-

They go out for drinks at the bar in the town because they’ve made it through three months of shooting with their skin and bones and (most of their) sanity intact.

She’s fiddling with the label on her beer bottle, holed up in the corner of an empty booth when Killian slips in beside her, grin on his face. “Aren’t you glad you decided to skip being a hermit for one night?”

She makes a face at him, “I’m not a hermit.”

“Ah, yes, I believe Leroy used the term ‘prickly’ to describe you.”

“Leroy called  _me_  prickly? Leroy is the grumpiest person on set. And I am  _not_  prickly.”

He chuckles, that deep kind that makes his dimples flash underneath his stubble, “I never said you were prickly, love. In fact, you’re quite fetching when you’ve had your caffeine.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Though, I understand what he means considering you are in a room full of people you work with,” his hand sweeps out to gesture at the bar they’ve rented out for the evening, “and you are seated here by yourself.”

“Yeah, well, Ruby ditched me to flirt with Belle from writing.”

“You have more friends than just Ruby, Swan. You’ve got Booth, Henry, Mary Margaret, Merlin, and well,” he tilts his head slightly as if he doesn’t know if he can say the next bit, a bit of shyness peaking through, “me.” He finishes and his eyes scan her face slowly.

“Yeah,” and Elsa’s words crash back down into the forefront of her mind. She manages a small laugh despite herself, despite the storm of feelings she doesn’t know how to deal with, “I was never that good socialising.”

“Could have fooled me by the amount of times you scoffed at me during the table reading,” he grins playfully.

“Please, like your incessant flirting was any better socialising.”

“What can I say, Swan? Around you, I can’t seem to help myself,” he quirks an eyebrow.

“At least you’re willing to admit it’s a problem, Jones,” she deflects.

He reaches out and tucks a stray curl behind her ear, his thumb lingering to swipe against her cheek for a second and fuck, that feeling in her gut only intensifies. “I wouldn’t necessarily call it a problem. It concerns you, and I’d never consider you a problem.”

She thinks she can hear Ruby’s voice over the microphone, drunkenly singing along to some terrible pop song but it seems to drain out the minute she locks her eyes with Killian’s unfairly blue ones. Even in the low light, she sees the glint in them. And it’s been so long since someone looked at her like he’s looking at her right now.

“Don’t speak too soon, you’ll probably jinx it.”

“I don’t believe in superstition, Emma, I’m more concerned with fate,” his voice has dropped down considerably and Emma has to strain her ears to hear him over the blood pounding in her ears like she’s some kind of schoolgirl. “And even more so, concerned with making my own fate.”

His eyes dart down to her lips as he says it and she feels the air around them charge with tension. She shouldn’t want to kiss him but she does. She does like hell.

He looks up at her, moves a bit closer and she notices the way his tongue darts across to wet his lips.

“I can’t get you out of my head,” he whispers quietly, almost like he’s scared of it himself. It should be reassuring but all she can think of is that he’s going to kiss her, fuck her, promise her everything and then he’s going to leave.

But, he does none of that. He merely stays where he is, his breath fanning over her lips, so close that she could count his eyelashes if she could only figure out what the hell was happening. She doesn’t realise he’s even holding her hand until she instinctively parts her lips and his thumb strokes the back of her hand.

She wants to inch forward and crush her lips to his but the spell breaks the minute someone yells Killian’s name over the mic and she jolts back. Great time for everything to stop draining out. But as she takes in his dazed expression, she thinks it’s for the best because they can’t sit in a room full of people and make out like it’s nothing.

It wouldn’t be nothing.

She stands up - awkwardly, because of the table cutting off most of her space - and he tightens his fingers around her hand, holding it between them. “Emma?” The longing in his eyes takes her aback for a second because it feels so  _real_.

“I need another beer,” she croaks out weakly. And she’s always leaving, always making excuses. But after a beat, he graciously slides out of the booth and lets her walk to the bar on trembling legs. The whole walk there, she hopes he doesn’t notice that the bottle she left on the table of the booth was only half empty.

-/-

She avoids him for the whole week after the bar night, blames Elsa entirely but it doesn’t do much good when she keeps catching him staring at her from the corner of her eye. It doesn’t do any good really because she can still feel the heat coming off of him, can remember the exact places his hands brushed over, the barely any space between them.

Ruby asks her why she isn’t hanging out with Killian Jones anymore and she says it’s because she needs to focus on the movie, and then buys Ruby a large chocolate chip muffin and a double espresso so she doesn’t ask any more questions.

Her avoidance works brilliantly (minus the dreams she has where she’s kissing him, or the fervent need to know what his hair feels like between her fingers or his arms wrapped around her and  _fuck_ ) up until August decides to shoot the only scene she can’t deal with right now.

The damn kiss.

She hasn’t spoken to Killian beyond Leia’s lines to Charles and the occasional montone affirmation. He’s standing there with his unbelievably mussed up hair and a small smile on his lips, that she thinks is meant to be encouraging, when August shouts “Action!”

She slips into character easily like she’s been doing for months now. “How’d you do it? How’d you get back here?”

“Well,” he steps closer to her and she has to work to keep her expression neutral, “I had a bean to open up a portal.”

“A magic bean? Those are not easy to come by.”

“They are if you’ve got something of value to trade.” The way he runs his hand through his hair really shouldn’t be this endearing.

“And what was that?”

“Why, the Jewel of the Realm, of course.”

She always thought this scene was significant. Something about someone giving up their only possession, their home, for the person they love. And the way he delivers the line, it just hits her even harder. “You traded your ship for me?”

Their faces are almost close enough as they were the last time, “Yes.”

She ignores the piercing look in his eyes and goes straight to lunging forward, letting the passion drive her, crashing her lips onto his. He responds immediately, hand going to tangle in her hair, the other snaking around her waist, and somehow managing to slow down the kiss. She feels it all the way down to her toes, the incessant drag of his lips across hers. Her hand shoots out to grip the lapels of his brown coat to keep herself steady, the other one carding through his hair. She kisses him like she’s wanted to every moment since the bar night, and probably months before, who knows. He kisses her like she’s his only source of oxygen.

When they part, their foreheads stay touching and their breathing is heavy and she thinks maybe they should have practiced kissing beforehand. But then again, maybe they shouldn’t have because she’s utterly  _wrecked_.

“Cut! That was beautiful, guys. Take 10 and then we’ll do it again.”

Everyone around them buzzes to work to reset the stage, but she stands there with her hands fisted in his clothes and eyes locked with his.

“Emma,” he raggedly whispers. And she lets go abruptly, turns, and runs.

-/-

“Swan, please open the door, love.” He knocks on her trailer door softly.

Nothing about it seems demanding so she does as he asks. His eyebrows are furrowed, eyes wide and hair sticking up in all directions. He must have run his hands through it, she thinks, until she remembers that no,  _she_  was the one running her hands through it only minutes ago. “May I come in?”

She nods and when he’s inside she closes the door. She doesn’t know what to say. Should she apologise for running away? Apologise for kissing him like that? Just leave? It would make his life much easier, she’s sure. He doesn’t need a broken flight risk by his side.

He saves her from saying anything possibly lame when he takes a deep breath and starts, “I met my first love in acting school. We had a lot in common especially our shared passion for the arts. We were together for four years, Milah and I, we graduated together and we got engaged. She was on her way home one night after an audition when she was hit by a drunk. Died instantly, the paramedics said.” His hands are shaking and there’s a lump in her throat she doesn’t know what to do with. He looks up at her, “I’m not telling you this for pity, I’m telling you this because ever since my Milah passed, I’ve never felt the same way about anyone as I did about her. That is, until I met you.”

And now her hands are the ones that are shaking. He grabs them immediately in between his, bringing them up to his chest, moving even closer into her space. “I know you’re scared but what I feel for you, I just, I need you to know that this isn’t simply some fling for me,” he adds.

“I can’t-”

“Please, Emma,” he pushes their joined hands closer into his chest and warmth runs up her arms, “please don’t run from me.”  _Not again_ is what he doesn’t say but she hears it anyway.

He looks tired and upset and still so hopeful. So different from the man that had winked at her the first time she’d met him, so much more open and vulnerable. She realises then that all his bravado is a facade, and she wonders why she never noticed it before.

He has a death grip on her hands and his shoulders are tight with tension. And she still has that damn lump in her throat so she simply raises herself on her tip toes and gently brushes her lips to his. He melts into her instantly, releasing her hands to cup her face gently. It lasts for a few seconds but she’s just as overwhelmed by this kiss as she was the first one. His hands move down to settle on her waist as he sways into her.

Her fingers go to brush the hair out of his eyes and he sighs softly. “I’m sorry for running. I don’t know what I feel but I like being around you.”

He leans into her touch when she cups his cheek, the stubble scratching against her palm. “I like being around you, too.”

“We should probably get back out there,” she says unconvincingly as she stares at his lips.

“We should.”

And then he’s pouncing on her, the fierceness of the kiss leaving her moaning into his mouth. He cradles the back of her head, deepening the kiss, tangling his tongue with hers. He tastes like the Americano he had before filming and she thinks maybe she can start getting her caffeine fix this way, instead.

They’re lost in a flurry of heated kisses and hands grasping at clothes to pull each other impossibly closer and closer and closer and - it’s the pounding on the door that has them jolting back to a stop. He’s got her backed up into the counter, a leg wedged between the two of hers and he’s panting, cheeks flushed and eyes fluttering open to reveal that brilliant blue mostly covered by his blown pupils. Her hair is probably a mess and her lips are probably swollen but she couldn’t care less.

“Two minutes, Miss Swan!” The voice outside the door calls.

“Coming!” She prides herself in how neutral it sounds.

Killian groans softly and buries his face in her neck, “Why are we always being interrupted?”

She cards her fingers through his soft, soft hair, scratching at his scalp. He hums and it reminds of her of a cat. Killian Jones, the big softie; if table-read-Emma could only see them now. “The perks of show business,” she huffs out a laugh and a half shrug.

“Come on,” she insists, tugging slightly at his hair, “we should get going.”

He looks up with a smirk, one eyebrow going high on his forehead because the last time she said that-

“I mean it, Killian.”

That makes his expression morph into something more serious and he stands up properly. He moves closer but only to brush his lips on her forehead.

“Would you like to join me for drinks tonight?” He asks quietly, like he won’t be able to take it if she says no.

“Yes.”

He kisses her again, short and sweet before he’s dragging her to the door and opening it for her with an exaggerated bow. “M’lady.”

She rolls her eyes and his smile is only wider.

-/-

Drinks in his trailer turn into conversations about why they pursued acting. She tells him about how she’s always liked the idea of being someone else, how one of her foster moms took her out to the cinema for her first movie and she just  _knew_. She tells him about waiting tables to save up for school, tells him about Neal, the director’s son, who’d met her when she was nineteen and waiting for an audition for a small budget short film. About their relationship that fell through after she realised he was never interested in her, only in the sex. She was young and head over heels but he was only doing it for fun, because he was bored.

Killian holds pulls her impossibly closer when she finishes, while she tells him about never being able to trust anyone like that again.

He doesn’t offer sympathies, and she’s grateful, instead he tells her about his brother praising him after one of his school plays and him wanting to have that feeling of pride forever. (“He never got to see me make it big, and I wonder if he’d be proud of me now.” She kisses him because  _of course he’d be proud of you._ )

That turns into another makeout session until they’re sprawled over the bed in each other’s arms, exhausted after their long day at work. His fingers are running through her hair and it’s making her even sleepier.

“Your trailer is bigger than mine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you have an extra counter.”

“You’re being petty, you don’t even use your counters. I have an inkling you live on bear claws and coffee.”

She hides her smile in his chest because he’s actually kind of right and it’s a bit embarrassing. “I don’t have time to eat with filming.”

“Well, that’s just a shame, love, the culinary art of this city is to die for,” she would shake her head at his theatrical speech but she’s too tired to move, eyes at the edge of closing. She settles for humming. She should really get back to her own bed.

“Emma?” She hums again. “Would you like to, uh, stay for the night?” Her body involuntarily stiffens at the thought of  _too quick_ ,  _too soon._ “Not like,” he quickly amends, “not like that, I’d take the couch. You just seem so exhausted, I wouldn’t ask you to walk back to your trailer.”

“It’s right next to yours,” she says but her eyes slip shut because Vancouver is fucking cold but he’s so warm. “Not a long walk.”

“Aye.”

“I’ll just-”

He hushes her, “Go to sleep, love.”

He drapes her with a blanket when he gets up to take the couch because he’s a “gentleman” (his words, she’d disagree if she had the energy, really). It’s warm but it’s not the same. But she can’t help but be relieved that he’s giving her the reigns here.

She falls asleep to his gentle “Good night, love,” and the lingering smell of his cologne on the sheets.

-/-

 ** _I kissed him._** Is all she texts Elsa the next day, an insane amount of emotions overpowering her while she goes over the day’s scene in her trailer.

_Yes, Ruby told me you guys shot that scene._

She groans.  ** _No, I kissed him. For real. And then he kissed me. And then I fell asleep in his trailer. And fuck._**

Her phone vibrates the minute she sends the text.  _Incoming Call: Elsa._ Great.

“Yes?”

“ _You kissed him._ ”

“Yes.”

“ _For real?_ ”

“Are you just quoting my text back to me?”

“ _Emma._ ”

“Okay, geez, yes.”

“ _And?_ ”

“And nothing,” she shrugs as if Elsa could see her.

“ _Where are you now?_ ”

“In my trailer.”

“ _You’re not with him?_ ”

“No, why would I-”

“ _You’re panicking_ ,” it’s not a question and Elsa’s right because fuck, this is so unlike her. “ _Emma, don’t let this scare you. This is good for you._ He _is good for you._ ”

“I don’t know what he is. It’s like he’s pulling me towards him.”

“ _That’s how attraction works_.”

“You know what I mean.” They’re both quiet for a while and then, “I told him about Neal.”

“ _You did?_ ” It is a question this time, one that’s laced with shock and amazement and something else. “ _How did that go?_ ”

“Fine,” she shrugs again, “he told me about his family and the first woman he loved. And then I fell asleep on his bed, woke up before him and ran out.”

“ _Emma Marie Swan_ ,” her friend sighs. “ _You can’t keep running away. You can’t keep building up your walls higher and higher each time. Trust me, it doesn’t do anyone any good. And the person you’re hurting the most is yourself._ ”

“It’s only going to crash and burn, Elsa.”

“ _You don’t know that_.”

She realises Elsa’s right. She doesn’t know. And for once in her life, she isn’t afraid to find out. It’s just her instincts kicking in at every turn.

“I gotta go,” she tells Elsa.

“ _Go get him_.”

With that she hurries out her door, and out into town to the bakery she saw once. It isn’t a long drive but she takes her sunglasses and hat anyway in case she runs into paparazzi. The paparazzi situation isn’t as bad here as it is in New York or LA and it eases her to know she can step out of filming without her face being slapped across every tabloid in the state.

She makes it back twenty minutes later, knocking at his door.

He looks tired when he opens it but his face lights up the minute he sees her. “Swan,” he says as she steps inside.

“We don’t start shooting for another few hours so I got us breakfast.” She places the bag with styrofoam containers on the counter.

She’s sorting out the food when he wraps his arms around her waist from behind, nose nuzzling the back of her neck and sending a shiver down her spine. “I thought you’d ran.”

She sighs, “I did.” And he goes rigid until she runs her hand over his fingers. “That is, until Elsa talked some sense into me.”

He turns her around. “I know you’ve been hurt, love, but I assure you I would never do that to you. I know it’ll be difficult, having our relationship out there for public eyes. Trust me, I don’t want to put you through that, but I’m in this for the long haul.”

“How do you know that? How do you know you’re not just going to change your mind later?”

“Because I know how I feel about you. It’s terrifying sometimes but from the minute I met you, I was gone.”

“But the paparazzi. And the tabloids, they’ll-”  
  
“Sod what anyone else says, Emma, do you want this?”

She looks at his gaze, open and honest and  _hopeful_. She thinks about Charles trading his ship for Leia and maybe he isn’t doing something that insane but it still has the same kind of effect on her. Maybe even bigger. And she does, she does want this, him, all of it. She waits for the fear to burst in through her thoughts but it doesn’t, so she makes up her mind.

“Yes, I do.”

He exhales a deep breath and leans his forehead against her. “Then we’ll face it all together, I promise.”

-/-

Ruby nearly knocks Emma over with the force of her hug when she finds out about her and Killian. (She’s not calling a relationship just yet, and thankfully, he isn’t questioning it.)

“What did I tell you?”

“Is this really what you want to do right now? Say ‘I told you so?’”

Ruby shrugs and plants a kiss on Emma’s cheek, “I’m happy for you.” Emma smiles in response, “Plus, the fans are going to  _lose it_. They’re already so in love with your characters, they’re calling you guys  _Charleia_. It’s adorable.”

“I don’t want anyone to know yet.”

“People are going to find out eventually, you know that right?”

“I do, I just, this is hard enough for me when it’s just the two of us involved. If the global audience of Hollywood was added in there, I don’t know how I’d react.”

“Alright, don’t worry. We’ll figure it out when you’re ready, okay?”

Emma nods gratefully and takes another bit of her grilled cheese. “So, Belle?”

Ruby tries to hide her blushing smile behind her coffee mug but fails entirely.

-/-

The wrap up of the movie is a morbid affair. Over the last 7 months, Emma’s gotten to know the cast and crew pretty well and the minute August calls cut, a deep sense of sadness settles on her chest. She felt this way after the end of her first tv show - but somehow, this is intensified. She think she knows why the minute her eyes lock with Killian’s over the swarm of people that are moving to hug each other.

This one was something special.

And the ending of shooting means the bursting of their little bubble. The whole cast and crew know about their relationship (yes, she’s calling it that now, sue her) but the real world, that’s something different. There have been some pictures of the cast that have gone up online but nothing about the two of them specifically.

She knows he’s going to go back home to LA and she’ll be in New York, wrapped up in enough meetings to drive her insane. She’s got plenty of miles racked up to see him. Hell, sometimes she thinks they need to give her a special seat considering how much she flies around.

She hugs everyone in turn - getting a little emotional when she hugs Henry because she’s really grown attached to the kid - ending with Killian.

“This has been my favourite shooting,” he mumbles into her hair.

“Mine, too.”

It’s only until they’re at that bar again (she doesn’t think the town has more than one, honestly) and in their booth (it’s  _theirs_ to her) that she lets it wash over her. She’s flying out in two days and she won’t see him for- “Two months.”

“We’ll see each other, love,” he says like he’s trying to convince himself more than her. “Nothing has to change,” he adds more confidently.

“You can’t be so sure about that.”

“I have faith in us, love.”

“I do, too,” she says automatically and doesn’t miss the way his grin broadens. “It’s just hard.”

“The course of true love never did run smooth,” he half smiles. It registers for a split second that he’s saying what they have is true and love and-

“You never could come up with your own lines,” she grins up at him.

“What can I say, I’m a pirate at heart.”

She kisses him, still smiling, her heart beating a tattoo against her chest. When she pulls back, she cups his face with one hand and he kisses her palm, “This movie was the best decision I’ve ever made.”

“I would beg to argue that  _I_  was the best decision you ever made,” he smirks at her.

“Please,” she scoffs.

“Swan, you know it’s true, don’t-”

“I love you,” she blurts out. Because  _she does_ , she doesn’t know when or how but she knows she does. And she needs him to know, too.

He freezes, stares at her for what feels like an eternity and she thinks she’s fucked it up that it’s too soon, that he doesn’t actually want this, and then he’s kissing her hard and completely  indecently for a public place. “Gods,” he whispers against her lips, “I love you so much.”

She pulls him closer, kissing him harder. She doesn’t care who sees.

-/-

The next few months are an endless row of sleepless nights (she thinks its because her bed is too large and too empty) and phone calls and texts and FaceTime dates with Killian. And when the day finally comes, the one where he’s standing in front of her apartment door with his suitcase next to him because they start promotions tomorrow, she isn’t ashamed to say she actually jumps into his arms.

The press releases go smoothly enough, Emma, Killian and Henry tag teaming answers like they were born to do this. It’s even more exhausting than she imagined and the never ending series of exactly the same questions leaves her groaning every time she gets back to the hotel. But, it’s Killian’s kisses and his insistence of mapping out every inch of her skin with his lips that settles her into thinking that maybe it all isn’t  _so_ bad.

It’s almost two months of interviews and promotions and flying out here and there, but she has Killian by her side through it all. Whenever someone throws her a question about whether or not her and Killian are dating, she deflects like the professional she is, or he cracks a joke and the interviewer moves on. Every time, she wonders if she should say yes, just get over with the hiding in hotel room and holding hands only when no one from the press can see them.

That is, until the night of the premiere.

She’s in the knee length red dress and it takes her and Killian far more time than it should to leave the hotel because he insists on backing her up against every vertical surface to kiss her senseless. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to the dizzying slide of his tongue against hers. She gets it though, seeing him in his three piece suit only makes her want to tear it right off.

Killian stays next to her as they go through a line of reporters - Ruby, and even his manager, Robin, had said that it would be better to do the interviews together considering the public already goes crazy if they so much as sit next to each other.

It’s the same questions she’s been answering for the last few weeks until the last one. “What would you say filming this movie has taught you?” The woman asks her as her final question.

“That I can’t survive without caffeine,” Killian laughs and the reporter chuckles, too. She turns to Emma then and something in her just clicks because she’s tired of the minimum space between her and Killian, wants his arm around her now and later and until he’ll have her. 

“And you?”

“It’s taught me that happy endings aren’t just in fairytales,” she grabs his hand then and twines their fingers together. He throws her a look that’s cautious and a little excited and she bends forward and kisses his cheek.

It sets off the reporter into a myriad of questions, the tens of others chiming in when they catch on (“Miss Swan, are you two dating?” “Mr Jones, how long has this been going on?” “Over here, Emma!” “Killian, look here!”) and the cameras begin to flash in their direction, and it would blind her if Killian’s smile hadn’t done it already.

“Are you sure, Swan?” He says quietly, only for her.

She answers him by pressing her lips against his.

(“‘Emma Swan and Killian Jones: A Fairytale Romance.’ This has to be my favourite one yet.” He slumps down onto the couch with his phone in hand the next morning.

“I don’t know, I liked ‘Lights, Camera, True Love’,” she grins as he places a kiss on her cheek. They haven’t figured out living arrangements or future projects (even though Ruby has been texting her nonstop about people calling her for interviews and auditions after the premiere, so that’s a good sign), but she knows it won’t be that big of a hassle with him by her side.

“Who knew you were such a sap, Swan?”

“Oh, just shut up and kiss me, Jones.”

He bites his lip, beaming, “With pleasure, my love.”)


End file.
